Well, I was in Florida again. It was A LOT hotter this time around than in March, but I’m not complaining. Sun, warmth, beer? It was a good week.
Now, I’m back and had plenty of wrestling to catch up on. SmackDown, AEW Collision, WWE Raw, NXT and AEW Dynamite. Phew.
What the hell happened??
A full court Bloodline press
-King of the Ring continued on SmackDown and Jey Uso advanced in the tournament. Man, they are really back in a full court Bloodline press aren’t they? The story is Jey working hard to become the world champion on SmackDown, so he needed to reach the semifinals. The fatal four-way with Royce Keys, Finn Balor, and LA Knight was a strong match, but one with a forgone conclusion. I don’t mind this story with Jey Uso and the Bloodline as long as it doesn’t interfere with Oba Femi. If I’m Triple H, I’m still more invested in that business than I am new, regurgitated Bloodline material.
-Queen of the Ring continued on SmackDown also. Charlotte Flair, welcome to the tournament semifinals. Jade Cargill had wig issues during the match, so it lost it’s focus. Flair was the right winner. That victory keeps multiple stories for her on the track in a positive way.
-So, Blake Monroe’s SmackDown promo was good and we’ll only know if it was REALLY good if she debuts in a significant and strong way. Monroe is talking and presenting as a huge star. Merging into the booking lane of traffic isn’t a viable option at this point. She needs to be at the top of the card when she comes in.
-Segment of the night on SmackDown goes to Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa. I’m not a fan of this version of Jacob Fatu, but he’s finding some nuance in how he portrays himself as Roman Reigns’ heavy. There is a begrudging respect to what he does for Reigns and that resonates because of how Fatu is playing things. Sikoa spoke a lot of truth when arguing with Fatu. He comes across much better when he has the other Bloodline members to play off of and doesn’t have to carry things on his own.
-Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn had a pretty good heart to heart on SmackDown this week. It seems as if WWE is on the slow burn to that match at some point. I maintain this — there is a way to position Zayn as a mega babyface and Rhodes as a mega heel because of this story and ahead of a huge championship match next year at WrestleMania 43. Zayn is getting booed now, but he isn’t really hated by the audience. I read this as the crowd is on the Zayn journey and soon, they’ll be there for him. Odd for Rhodes to be the one opposite him as champion for the journey, but also perfect if Zayn can get the crowd to fully turn on him at some point.
-This week’s AEW Collision was a bit of a match throw-up fest of a show. This thing had nine freaking matches in two hours. Goodness.
Steel, Dogs, and Athena steal AEW Collision
-Standouts of the show were Zayda Steel, The Dogs, and Athena. Steel took the loss at the hands of Hikaru Shida, but got over while doing it. There is a natural charisma to her that is underutilized at this time. It would be interesting to see what she can do with a sustained mini push instead of losing all the time on AEW television.
-The Dogs got a win over The Young Bucks. That’s not nothing. The Dogs are going to face Adam Copeland and Christian Cage at Forbidden Door and this was a strong victory to get them some booking momentum ahead of what surely will be a loss on PPV.
-Why isn’t Athena a full-time AEW talent at this point? It’s wasted work to keep trying to reintroduce her to the audience every time there is a tournament going on. Athena can be a player in this division, but AEW brass has to let her.
-On Raw, Roman Reigns officially invited Jacob Fatu into The Bloodline. Wait, haven’t we been here already? Didn’t he acknowledge Reigns a couple weeks ago? They can’t keep rehashing these same little angles just to fill television time. Now, both Reigns and Fatu acted heelish in the end. They both ganged up on poor comedian Eric Andre and also attacked him. For some odd reason, the entire audience cheered. I know wrestling fans hate celebrity involvement in the show, but the reaction was downright mean! The broader point is, are fans supposed to cheer Reigns and Fatu or boo them? Still undefined. It doesn’t matter all that much in this exact moment, but it will when Reigns has a showdown later with Oba Femi. That feud needs to be as clear as day when it rolls around.
From The Takedown on SI
-Damn, what a reaction for Chad Gable on Raw this week. I’m not putting the world championship on Gable and calls of him being the best wrestler in the world aren’t accurate. He’s gotten himself quite over, though, and WWE would be silly not to run with this momentum while they have it. Gable against Rusev was a really fun match. It’s probably time to get the WWE Men’s Intercontinental Championship on a heel, so Gable can take it from them.
-Bron Breakker and Seth Rollins are going to wrestle inside of a steel cage at Night of Champions. Both guys really need this victory. Glad I’m not Paul Levesque. Booking the winner here would keep me awake at night.
-Very cool to see Roxanne Perez and Charlotte Flair on opposite sides of the ring this week. The size difference between both women is staggering. The match stayed in about third gear, but this won’t be the last time we see them in a ring together. With Perez as an eventual babyface, a showdown with Flair on a PLE is a money match. It seems as if WWE is heading that way. With Liv Morgan and Perez showing that much miscommunication with one another, that babyface turn for Perez is right around the corner. Morgan is a perfect heel to do it off of.
A weak vision
-Holy crap. The Vision keeps getting weaker and weaker. Je’Von Evans easily dusted Austin Theory, but to what end? The Vision has been cursed Danhausen-style and isn’t clicking, but the booking isn’t helping. Nothing against Je’Von Evans, but Logan Paul and Theory can’t look too much weaker than they do right now. As I said last week — keep Bron Breakker far away from this group.
-Yep, I was a big fan of Oba Femi vs. Dominik Mysterio. Not all matches need to be five-star classics in order to be a fun watch. Femi squashed Mysterio because of course he did. That’s the bit. At this very moment, Oba Femi is one of the most popular stars in WWE and it’s strictly because of the work he does to sell and react for his own hype. As I mentioned earlier in the column — no surprise to see Femi advance to the finals. WWE is in a creative pickle with him in that spot. Femi needs to be King of the Ring. If he doesn’t win, he’ll need to take a protected loss. There aren’t any logical options on the table to get to one. An obvious one would be Brock Lesnar returning to screw him out of the tournament, but Lesnar beat him already. Story over from that perspective. If they do a third match, it has to be because Femi openly and confidently calls out Lesnar, not the other way around.
-Zaria, the new NXT Women’s North American Champion, cut a strong victory promo this week. She bickered with the other top women in the division after it, but it was a strong promo nonetheless.
-Lola Vice and Kendal Grey working together as partners this week, but also enemies at The Great American Bash next week is SO WWE. Glad to see some things don’t ever change … not. Grey and Vice did fine with the match and the story, but it’s so overplayed at this point.
More Nattie
-Hell yeah. Nattie vs. Jaida Parker was a heck of a match. Worth checking out if you aren’t a regular viewer of NXT.
-Rats! I was hoping to go away for a bit and then come back to an NXT that rid itself of the Speed Championship matches. Alas, that was not the case and the Speed stuff on the show was still painfully yawn-inducing.
-Ok, let’s talk a little AEW Dynamite. One of the main hooks of the show this week was the big reveal of who was on Team MJF and Team Mark Briscoe for their cage match war at Forbidden Door next week. The teams are the teams. You could have seen them coming exactly the way they did from a mile way. Tremendously predictable. That said, they work. There are all sorts of cross-team and inter-team stories for the match to play off of. Team MJF won in a regular match against Team Briscoe this week. The match was fine, but I question running it out there on this show just a week before those exact teams square off in the cage. A couple of trios matches between the squads would have been a way to get action between all of them, while not giving too much of the PPV match away.
Mulligan!
-Umm, can we give Kenny Omega a mulligan on that promo against Zack Sabre Jr? Omega said a lot about ZSJ and put him over as an opponent, but didn’t land the plane when it came to talking about why he wanted to beat him so badly. A miss and example of why story is so important to wrestling matches. This match doesn’t really have a reason to happen and it showed with how Omega talked about it.
-Thekla vs. Starlight Kid? Inject it into the veins. If you haven’t seen Starlight Kid work, this is a match you’ll want to see. Thekla can wrestle the Stardom style opposite Starlight and though this match hasn’t gotten all that much time to build, the little promos Thekla has done against Stardom has set the table nicely.
-This was a week full of strong women’s matches and Mercedes Mone vs. Hazuki in the Women’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament was the best of them. Action-packed with some unique spots. A little slow to start, but they pulled everyone in by the end.
Pros at work
-Finally, Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay were tremendous. Both men put the proper framing around their big showdown match at Forbidden Door. Ospreay very much played the babyface on a journey with all the talk of chasing down his dream of winning the world title in his home country. Strickland wasn’t a traditional heel, but balanced his words and demeanor in a way that made Ospreay shine brightest. Strickland didn’t outwardly act like a jerk just to act like one. He stuck inside of his edgy personality and the reality of that was Will Ospreay can’t win if Swerve does. That was expertly crafted and well acted on the part of both guys.
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